Near-Earth Asteroid 2024 JD very close encounter: an image – 5 May 2024.
On 8 May 2024, the near-Earth asteroid 2024 JD will have a very close, but safe encounter with the Earth. It will come as close as 278000 of km, about 72% the average lunar distance. We observed it while it was approaching us.
The image above comes from a single 120-second exposure, remotely taken with the Celestron C14+Paramount ME+SBIG ST8-XME robotic unit available as part of the Virtual Telescope Project. The telescope tracked the apparent motion of the asteroid, so it looks like a sharp dot of light, indicated with a white arrow, while stars leave bright streaks on the background.
At the imaging time, asteroid 2024 JD was at about 750000 of km from us and it was slowly approaching the Earth. This asteroid was discovered by the Panstarrs Survey on 1 May 2024.
This 8.2m – 18m large asteroid will reach its minimum distance (about 278000 km, 72% of the average lunar distance) from us on 08 May 2024, at 13:34 UTC (source: Nasa/JPL). Of course, there are no risks at all for our planet.
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